By EnsignExpendableDisclaimer: this article contains only the historically justified reserves for buffing the T-28. I do not necessarily believe that any of these buffs are possible, likely, or necessary, either individually or put together. Buff My Tank segments are for entertainment purposes only.
The T-28 is one of the older tanks in this game, both by development time (most of the world was still on FT-17 clones in 1932), and by being in one of the first tech trees that were introduced. Through its long service in the Red Army, it was continuously modernized, but the T-28 in the game has remained the same (aside from losing its 85 mm gun). Let's see if we can apply some modernizations to the in-game tank.

Probably the most well known modification of the T-28 is the T-28E (ekranirovanniy, with screens). These tanks received additional armour plates, welded on to the existing armour. Instead of the in-game 30 in the front and 20 on the side, which even the weakest gun in the game has no problems with, the armour would grow to a respectable 80 in the front and 40 on the sides. This amount of armour actually matters, and will not be easily penetrated by tier 1 guns anymore.

Various T-28s were developed with increased speed. The T-29, which was a T-28 with a Christie suspension, could reach 57 kph. The T-29-4 could reach 72 kph. The T-29-5 could reach a blazing 81 kph.

In 1935, a hydromechanical transmission was developed for the T-28. Such a transmission would boost the agility of the tank (see the long-lost PzIV Hydro).

The tank was also modernized in 1935, into the T-28A. The T-28A could reach 68 kph (compare to the 45 kph the in-game T-28 is capable of) on the same suspension type.

I previously mentioned an 85 mm gun. Some of you, if you have been playing long enough, will remember the F-30 85 mm gun on the T-28. However, that is old news. The T-28 also saw tests of the F-39 95 mm gun. The ballistics of the gun were to be the same as the 95 mm divisional gun F-28. However, work on the 95 mm guns ceased in favour of 107 mm guns, and the F-39 didn't make it to mass production. This doesn't stop us in World of Tanks, however, so let's keep speculating. The F-39 gun was 39 calibers in length, which, although not a lot, got the shell to 650 m/s. It was estimated that the shell would penetrate 65 mm of armour angled at 60 degrees from a distance of 1000 meters. In similar estimates, the F-32 gets 43 mm of penetration under those conditions. Assuming the ratios hold, the penetration of the F-39 would be approximately 100 mm at 100 meters, against flat armour (given the in-game penetration of 67 mm for the F-32 gun). This is still lower than the ZiS-4, which is currently the top gun on the T-28, and still lower than the F-30 85 mm gun (that made its way to the KV-1). A F-39 gun with a lower much lower ROF, but much greater damage, wouldn't be overpowered for the T-28.

Here we go, an 80 mm armoured beast, flying around at 81 kph, with a 95 mm gun :) That ought to make the T-28 not suck.

- Q: "Why are people with less than 1000 games played driving around in Object 907?" A: "I beg for forgiveness that we forgot to consult with you the criteria for distributing the test vehicles and the testing methods"
- when SerB is playing, he carries cca 10 golden shells with him and shoots them when needed, but Victor Kisliy is apparently shooting gold shells all the time: "He's not a poor man, he can afford it"
- Q: "Will you introduce account unification? I am asking because a friend of mine moved abroad and I use his account" A: "People ask for a long time about this option. That is people like account hackers, greedy players, who want to transfer tanks exclusive to newbies to their main account and people breaking the EULA, like you and your friend. What do you think, should we grant their request? :)"

As for that twat reviving the old Q&A thread on the EU forums, up to you, whether you want to read your news there or not, but that guy is one of the butthurt Czech trolls and one of the worst pieces of shit from CZ forums (and that's something already), and since I've been getting some "nice" Czech fanmail lately again, you can imagine what is the motivation behind the thread necromancy.

Alright, getting back to the "sharing the misery" post from yesterday evening about how the proposed EU Q&A could work (this is the thread the whole issue is about), because an interesting post appeared:

What would be tremendously helpfull would be one person, that speaks English and Russian with following jobdescription:

1. Follow RU side Q&A and compile and translate most intresting info
to English (and then to other languages by other WG emplyees or
community as necessary). Basically what Silent Stalker is doing now in
his blog.
2. Follow EU side Q&A and give answer to questions that have been
already answered on RU side by devs (no need to reask them). Possibly
give also his own opinion and generally make us feel that someone is
listening to us. (Currently some feedback is acted upon and some not,
but there will go months before anything happens and people don't even
know if any WG employee has read their concerns. Then all of a sudden
something changes. This is quite frustrating. Simlpe "noted" would help
in this.)
3. Gather intresting unanswered questions on EU Q&A and send them to
developers (and translate them to Russian if needed) for answers.
This could be done with US side, so that same person would do same job
for them also. Basically just liasoning job between English speaking
community and Russian speaking developers. I wouldn't mind having same
with other supported languages also, but EN-RU is the most important
because most of community can speak English.

Why do I get back to this? Because this is the best proposal/summary I've seen to date. This is how I would want it to look like, if it was up to me. A few points to "polish" it a bit though:

For one, translating is really not enough. Overlord stated today that he'd like for the translations to be a start. I disagree. Literal translations wouldn't work, the person responsible has to interpret too. Why? Two reasons:

- first one is a bit complicated: during one translating session, a question is answered with statement A, a page later another question is answered with statement B, that effectively denies statement A, thus statement B is correct, but literal translation would include both statements A and later statement B. Typical example: SerB/Storm "premium account buff" exchange this wek. It's confusing as hell. Ideal solution therefore is for the translator to read statement A, to read statement B and interpret both the A and B as only B. This is by the way where most of the whine about my incorrect translations comes from: something is later denied, I combine both statements into one answer, which is "B" and people whine "A" wasn't translated. It was, I just decided to ignore it in favour of B. Of course, I CAN interpret things wrongly, but it's not because of the language. Well, not mostly anyway (from what I heard from Russian players who aren't inherently hostile to me, the mistake ratio is quite good).

- another reason for interpretation is that during the literal translations, SerB/Storm would end up sounding like aggressive morons. What works for RU doesn't work for EU/NA

Obviously, one way would be to skip the answers where SerB/Storm is trolling, but that's hardly possible. Why? Because even negative answers ("this won't be implemented") have their value, if only for players to know what not to expect and not to ask such stuff again.

Another important part Gnomus caught very well is the constant communication. It's important to keep talking (writing) even when there is not that much to say, because players won't feel abandoned that way.

Naturally, the person who would do such a thing would have to recieve a "developer" status in order to make the things he/she says "legit" (if someone random started doing this, the reaction would probably be "fuck off, we want developers").

But yes, I believe what Gnomus proposed is exactly what EU server needs. Plus, it would put no additional requirements on the developers (unless the amount of questions passed from the EU server would be too big - but that would be that person's job to sort out the useless crap). Obviously, all this would have to happen only in English, there is NO way how to do this in all the supported languages. That's simply not doable, that would be up to the people stepping up (as mentioned in the first post on this topic).

today we are going to have a look at one tank that appears on the WoT forums in regular intervals (quite correctly) as a candidate for a tier 5 premium tank - the Nahuel. When I wrote about the Patagon tank some time ago, I wrote that the Nahuel is basically a Sherman knock-off. This caused some amount of disagreement - and rightfully so, because I was wrong. But let's have a look at this interesting vehicle.

The full name of the vehicle is "Carro de Combate Medio Nahuel D.L.43" and it is one of the first Argentinian armored vehicle attempts. Pre-WW2 Argentina generally wasn't exactly the most industrially developed country in the world, therefore it was capable of producing only generally very simple designs and constructions. It's no wonder that the army was - by the time WW2 broke out - equipped only with foreign made vehicles. By that time, the army sought to purchase the French, British or even Czech vehicles to arm itself, but as the war came closer, no tanks were available to buy, since all the armies tried to arm themselves at all costs. Some serious negotiations took place between Argentina and Czechoslovakia over the purchase of the LT-38 light tanks, but before any agreement could be reached, Czechoslovakia was already occupied and produced tanks exclusively for the Germans.
Other attempts to acquire modern technology were practically thwarted by Americans, who suspected Argentina of nazi sympathies and were not interested in strengtening the Axis forces any further - that's why they basically blocked any Argentinian attempts to buy armor abroad.

This import quasiban led to the Argentinian decision to actually develop their own medium tank. The decision took place in 1942 (a committee to ovesee the development was estabilished) and in 1943, the actual project was accepted. Lt.Col. Baisi was charged with its proper development. This man would later become celebrated as the "father of the Argentinian armored corps" and handled the development well.

The project itself was definitely inspired by the M4 Sherman design, but the similiarity was only superficial - the "guts" of the vehicle were completely different. The design work went really fast, even for 40's standards: a wooden mockup was ready in 45 days and the first prototype saw the light of day in only 2 months. The project was named "Nahuel". Apparently, it's supposed to mean "Tiger" in the language of Argentinian natives (Indians), but after looking for a while, I discovered that there can be an alternative translation as "Jaguar". Indeed, some sources translate it as "Jaguar", but that's not really important.

The hull of the Nahuel was welded from armored plates. The turret was cast - a technology which did cause the Argentinians some trouble, but in the end, they managed to make it. The armament was a 75mm Krupp howitzer.

The first prototype trials - at first the hull was tested without the turret attached - ended well, the vehicle performed admirably. The vehicle was presented to public during a 1943 coup anniversary military parade on 4.6.1944 in Buenos Aires - first 10 Nahuels were ready by then. In the end, a total of 16 vehicles were produced in the Arsenal Esteban de Luca in Buenos Aires between 1943 and 1944. By 1944 however, Argentina officially "switched sides" and became an ally of the USA. As a result, American surplus Shermans were imported en-masse and there was no need to produce more Nahuels (especially since the late model Shermans were superior in most respects).

In the end, the Nahuel served until 1962, when the last one was decommissioned. Most were scrapped, some served as training targets and sadly not a single vehicle survived until now.

Parameters

Weight: 35 tons
Engine: 500hp Lorraine Dietrich 12E.B.
Maximum speed: 40 km/h
Armor: 25 to 80mm
Armament: Krupp model 1909 field gun (75mm L/30) with the ROF of 10 shots per minute, according to some sources these guns were replaced after the war by Bofors 75mm L/40 guns, 1x 50cal MG, 3x7.62mm MG'sIn World of Tanks

Since the probability of introduction of some South American tree is very, very low, this vehicle would make a nice tier 5 American premium medium tank. Its mobility is decent and while the gun is inferior to the Sherman, it could still work. Plus, I think I recall correctly that some developer said at some point that Nahuel might appear. In any case, it's a nice piece of South-American engineering and it shouldn't be forgotten.

In December 1942, the Technical committee of the Main Artillery Command of the Red Army developed technical/tactical requirements for a self-propelled artillery gun, equipped with a twin-linked pair of 122mm M-30 howitzers. These requirements then went to the OKB-172 factory, based in Perm, where by the end of April 1943, a project for the twin-barrelled SPG based on T-34 was developed. It recieved a factory designation of SU-2-122.

Just like with the KV-7, the main point of the idea was the possibility to fire in salvos. In order to implement this idea, a price had to be paid: the T-34 hull was prolonged by one roadwheel and the weight was increased to 35 tons. After considering advantages and disadvantages, the aforementioned committee decided to scrap the SU-2-122 project, not even a prototype was built.

So, it was past midnight and I was just browsing the EU forums and stumbled upon this thread. The thread itself - while justified - is not exactly groundbreaking, but Ectar's answer in it (grats on the new avatar picture, EU flag - lovely, it fits WG EU more than you know) is interesting. Basically, it's just another batch of moaning as to why they can't do officially what this blog does unofficially - but it's all nicely put together.

I will quote Ectar from the abovementioned post:
"Feedback is very important, however the English speaking community on
this forum isn't the only community we have to look out for. Because the
English speaking section covers multiple countries its a very busy
forum section, however the German and Polish sections for example are
also pretty massive, get a lot of traffic, and their feedback, questions
and views are also important.
For everything you want to see for the English speaking section,
consider also that our other language communities also deserve that
level of interaction. Seven officially supported languages, that each
deserve to be treated equally. We appreciate that across our national
forums not everything is in line with each other and we're doing what we
can to bring things together."

What he wrote, does that sound right to you? Well... it reminded me of another quote, this time from Winston Churchill:

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

Now, I won't put the connection between a (Bela)Russian game and socialism (that would be way too obvious), but - isn't the thing going on on EU forums simply equally sharing of misery? Like socialism, this forum attitude started with a reasonable idea: "Let's make everyone equal". Well, yes, the thing is, not everyone IS equal. Sorry, if that comes as a shock to you, but it's like that. People who don't speak (at least) English are simply limited. English is the world language, not Russian, not Chinese (well, not yet anyway), but English is.

Therefore, it's absolutely justifiable in my eyes for English-speaking people to have more attention (news, developer answer etc.) than various language mutations, because it's the one world language people of Europe learn at schools. Western feedback, guides, videos, streams... a lot of that is in English. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume English speaking people are better informed anyway than the various language forum mutations, visited by people who actually don't speak English. What does this mean for the Q&A? It means one thing: English speaking people have much higher chance of asking reasonable questions than people who don't speak English. In other words: restricting the Q&A questions to English-only would actually most likely improve their quality.

But for some reason, this doesn't apply to Wargaming EU. Wargaming EU seems to think that since it's not right to prefer one "supported" language over another and since they can't do a quality Q&A in all supported languages (which is completely true, they can't, that would be crazy), instead of offering ONE quality Q&A in English, they decided for a socialistic solution of equal misery sharing: noone gets shit. The current Q&A just sucks and it won't improve, because Wargaming is restricted by their own rules.

The obvious counterargument is: "But if we do it in English, info won't get to all the languages, right?"Wrong.

Look at this blog for example: it gets translated (practically daily) to Czech, Polish, German (I haven't visited your community ever since the ban, but they actually had guys such as Raguel and Stormshadow doing this even before I started myself last year), French (hey Lactose), Spanish (if I remember correctly), but also Chinese and Vietnamese, funnily enough. Each community has "their" person, who stepped up and started translating it to their native language and those people have my respect too for doing it.

The same thing would happen, if what this blog does was done officially. Or if Q&A was available only in English. Players from various nations would simply step up, WG EU would get happier customers and overall the info level would rise all across the board. Instead of official sharing of... well... nothing, you'd get unofficial sharing of information, which in turn helps to build the community around the fans who step up.But of course, that won't happen.

Why? Because (unless WG EU hires an extra person to do the Q&A), it would actually require an EFFORT. Yea, I know, this is the part where I get told WG EU guys are working very hard and all that. Not convinced. It would be doable and I could retire :) (yea, been thinking about that a lot lately).

PS: Ectar's moaning about NA developers not being developers is also BS. Technically, he's "right", but the difference is, The_Chieftain speaks with NA players practically daily (and as a human being too, not "this won't happen and fuck off" SerB-style) on various development topics (for example, today, he said an interesting piece of info that apparently, Tiger might get a rebalance eventually - no, I don't know anything more, but he's working on something). It works there. It can work on EU too.